Israel Update 2.2.23

TERRORIST ATROCITIES IN JERUSALEM LAST SHABBAT

 

Fadi Dekidek, an Arab paramedic from East Jerusalem who is a 20-year veteran at Magen David Adom, Israel’s premier emergency service, was dispatched to save lives in two consecutive attacks by Palestinian terrorists across Jerusalem.  “The difference between a culture that glorifies terror and one that works hard to heal is education,” he said. “I’m sure you…all know that MDA is in a state of its own for co-existence. Jews save Arabs. Arabs save Jews. I think it’s an example for the whole world.” He also said “I started volunteering for Magen David Adom at 17 and then, after my father had a heart attack and I saw Jewish people save his life, I decided to continue”. President & Mrs Herzog welcomed Fadi to their residence where he told them: “Saving lives is where we are all united”.Read more here Read more here Read more here View here

 

 

These are the victims of the Palestinian terrorist who opened fire in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighbourhood on Friday night: Eli and Natalie Mizrahi, aged 48 and 45, heard the gunshots and went outside to help the wounded. Rafael Ben-Eliyahu, 56, is survived by a wife and three children. Asher Natan, 14, had left home following the Friday night meal to meet up with friends. Shaul Chai, 68, was walking back home after a Shabbat meal at a relative’s home. Irina Korolova, 59, a Ukrainian citizen, came to Israel six years ago and worked as a private nurse. Ilya Sosonsky, 26, also a Ukrainian national, was a resident of Jerusalem and a locally-known DJ and musician. Read more here

 

 

A 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire on five Jews walking toward the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Saturday, wounding a father and son. The latter is an off-duty Israeli paratrooper who despite being seriously wounded, neutralized the attacker with his weapon before being evacuated to hospital. The medical condition of the injured officer has deteriorated and he is in serious but stable condition, sedated and on a ventilator. Read more here (paywall) Read more here Read more here

 

 

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza on Friday night celebrated the terrorist attack near a Jerusalem synagogue. Videos posted on social media showed Palestinians chanting in the streets, setting off fireworks and firing guns, cars honking and people giving out sweets in Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, as well as east Jerusalem.   Read more here

 

Videos of Palestinian celebrations of the murders of Israeli civilians:

View here (Twitter)

View here( Twitter)

 

Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli-Arab activist, berated Tel Aviv university students demonstrating support of Jenin terrorists, asking them why they are studying in Israel (largely paid for by the Israeli taxpayer) and why don’t they go and study in Jenin instead? View here (Twitter)

 

SKY NEWS INTERVIEW WITH DEPUTY JERUSALEM MAYOR

 

Fleur Hassan educates Kay Burley (2 minutes 16 seconds) View here

 

 

GAZA

 

 

Two rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel last Thursday night were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defence system. A rocket similarly launched on Wednesday evening was also intercepted. Read more here Read more here

 

 

The Centre for Peace Communications has produced short animated interviews entitled  “ Whispered in Gaza” giving an opportunity to ordinary courageous Gazans to tell the world what life is like under Hamas rule.

One example is Khalil whose grandparents raised him on stories of a better time. In their generation, “we used to attend [Israelis’] celebrations, and they would come to ours.” Palestinians were free to travel from Gaza to Jaffa or Jerusalem, and work alongside Israelis…The two decades between 1967 and 1987 saw rapid material improvement in living conditions in Gaza. Nearly 40% of the workforce worked in Israel and accounted for an enormous share of Palestinian GDP..

All 25 videos can be separately viewed here: View here on Youtube

Commentary here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

 

 

INTIMIDATION IN THE UK

 

 

The group Palestine Action, has vandalized the premises of a Staffordshire factory making repurposed motorbike engines for drones.  Factory workers also spoke of seeing protestors, armed with hammers, “climbing over the walls” and threatening them. While the business is Israeli-owned, it says it is “fully compliant with all the UK export license laws” and does not send military parts to Israel for use.
Jody, head of security at the factory, said: “This narrative that they communicate to their people is completely false…. Everybody has got the right to protest. But when they cross that line and start smashing the bejeesus out of our building, intimidating our people, it ain’t on.”Read more here

 

 

UKRAINE

 

 

Israel’s Defence Ministry announced that it had delivered three more armoured ambulances to Ukraine’s emergency services, in addition to one delivered several weeks ago which “is already assisting rescue forces in life-saving activities”. The bullet-proof Mercedes Sprinter ambulances are equipped with “life-saving medical gear such as a monitor, defibrillator, oxygen system, and more”.   Read more here

 

 

 

MEDICAL INNOVATION

 

 

A medical breakthrough by Israeli start-up IceCure Medical now allows doctors to freeze early-stage breast tumours with no surgery, no scarring, no general anaesthetic and no tissue removal. The entire procedure can take as little as 40 minutes with no need for hospitalisation. Read more here

 

 

Israeli scientists at Ben Gurion University have developed a substance containing “nano needles” which have a lethal effect on bacteria, overcoming antibiotic resistance, and will be developed into topical creams and antibacterial coatings for surfaces. The substance has shown 90% effectiveness in killing antibiotic-resistant bacteria in lab conditions. Read more here

 

 

 

A FIRST FOR SHEBA HOSPITAL

 

 

 

Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre has  conducted a training programme in Mombasa, Kenya with the US Navy’s 5th Fleet  aimed at enhancing the preparedness of the Kenyan Navy for both civilian and combat mass casualty scenarios. Sheba’s experts worked alongside military and civilian personnel from Kenya, the US, Qatar and Denmark to exchange ideas and best practices in mass casualty and public health emergencies. Read more here

 

 

AID FOR MOLDOVA

 

 

Israel has donated equipment worth over $250,000 to perinatal centres in nine district hospitals, including 8 incubators, 6 resuscitation tables and 3 radiant tables for newborns.Read more here

 

 

CHAD

 

Chadian President Mahamat Deby has inaugurated Chad’s embassy in Israel.Read more here

 

 

 

SEASONAL

 

In honour of Tu B’Shvat on Sunday night & Monday, a tree historian describes 10 of Israel’s most remarkable trees.(Illustrated article)  Read more here

 

 

 COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Bassem Eid: Friday night’s massacre of civilians outside a Jerusalem synagogue was celebrated by Palestinians. There is something deeply broken in a Palestinian street culture that honours violence against innocents, a culture in which some were filmed dancing in the streets and handing out candies after the 9/11 terror attacks. Multiple generations of Palestinian young people have been taught to hate Jews and Israel’s allies. Too much of the Western world has coddled this perverse cycle. Enough is enough. Palestinians and all those who truly support us must stand for humanity.
All humanity should recognize the difference between a preventative assault on a terrorist cell in Jenin on Thursday and the massacre of civilians near a house of worship on Friday. Yet Palestinian culture has somehow come to tolerate such chilling slaughter.
It’s time to admit that Palestinian institutions are broken, and that they have developmentally harmed generations of Palestinian men and women, boys and girls, by whipping them into a constant froth with violently antisemitic educational and media content that celebrates “martyrdom” attacks against Israelis. The Palestinian Authority provides a financial incentive for terrorism by providing pensions to the families of those who attack Israelis.
The writer is a Palestinian political analyst and human rights pioneer.Read full article here

 

 

JPost Editorial: The recent wave of Palestinian terror attacks reveals the degree to which education and propaganda have led to a level of hatred that it is the main driver behind the attacks.
Palestinian schools demonize Israel and teach students to be martyrs.
Every country has educational systems that celebrate national heroes. But Palestinian education and society at-large are unique in how they celebrate those who murder civilians.
The impact of being raised for decades with a worldview of celebrating the killing of civilians, encouraging martyrdom and pledging allegiance to erase a state and people who are their neighbors can’t be underestimated.
Those foreign bodies that fund Palestinian textbooks must demand accountability.Full editorial here

 

 

Brendan O’Neill:… instead of this being a conflict between a state and those who oppose the existence of that state, it all comes to be seen as a cosmic showdown between evil and good, between Israeli wickedness and Palestinian victimhood. Every shade of grey is ruthlessly chased out when Israel is demonized and the Palestinians are infantilized in order to weave a simplistic black-and-white narrative that does little to shed light on the truth.
Have we really lost the ability to morally differentiate between an armed confrontation between soldiers and militants and the mass murder of unarmed civilians in their place of worship? These are not the same thing. “Explaining” the synagogue massacre as if it were an understandable expression of broader tensions shows just how unhinged anti-Israel sentiment has become. Nothing makes the mass murder of Jews for being Jews a comprehensible thing. Full article here

 

 

Seth J. Frantzman: on Friday when a Palestinian murdered seven Israelis, the question raised on some media was about the “cycle” of violence. What is the cycle? The raid on Jenin was conducted to prevent Palestinian Islamic Jihad from preparing a terror attack. That terror group has been involved in increasing clashes with Israel over the last years.

It’s not a cycle, it’s a one-way conflict in which the Iran-backed PIJ stockpiles illegal weapons and threatens Israel from places like Jenin. PIJ is an illegal armed terror group. There’s no cycle, it’s Israelis trying to pre-empt the group from expanding and carrying out attacks.Full article here